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Product Description

The versatile Big Berkey system is the ideal system for use at home with small or medium sized families, travel, outdoor activities or during unexpected emergencies. This powerful system purifies both treated water and untreated raw water from such sources as remote lakes, streams, stagnant ponds and water supplies in foreign countries, where regulations may be substandard at best. Perfect for everyday use, outdoor activities and a must in hostile environments where electricity, water pressure or treated water may not be available. The Big Berkey system removes pathogenic bacteria, cysts and parasites entirely and extracts harmful chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides, VOCs, organic solvents, radon 222 and trihalomethanes. It also reduces nitrates, nitrites and unhealthy minerals such as lead and mercury. This system is so powerful it can remove food coloring from water without removing the beneficial minerals your body needs. Virtually no other system can duplicate this performance. Constructed of highly polished 304 stainless steel, the system comes complete with four purification elements and utilizes the latest technological advances. This system has a storage capacity of about 2.25 gallons (8.5 liters) and when in use it stands 19.25" in height with a diameter of 8.5". The upper chamber nests within the lower chamber for transport and stands only 13" in height. Configured with four Black Berkey purification elements the system will purify up to 7 Gallons (13.3 liters) per hour.

From the Manufacturer

The versatile Big Berkey system is the ideal system for use at home with small or medium sized families, travel, outdoor activities or during unexpected emergencies. This powerful system purifies both treated water and untreated raw water from such sources as remote lakes, streams, stagnant ponds and water supplies in foreign countries, where regulations may be substandard at best. Perfect for everyday use, outdoor activities and a must in hostile environments where electricity, water pressure or treated water may not be available. The Big Berkey system removes pathogenic bacteria, cysts and parasites entirely and extracts harmful chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides, VOCs, organic solvents, radon 222 and trihalomethanes. It also reduces nitrates, nitrites and unhealthy minerals such as lead and mercury. This system is so powerful it can remove food coloring from water without removing the beneficial minerals your body needs. Virtually no other system can duplicate this performance. Constructed of highly polished 304 stainless steel, the system comes complete with four purification elements and utilizes the latest technological advances. This system has a storage capacity of about 2.25 gallons (8.5 liters) and when in use it stands 19.25" in height with a diameter of 8.5". The upper chamber nests within the lower chamber for transport and stands only 13" in height. Configured with four Black Berkey purification elements the system will purify up to 7 Gallons (13.3 liters) per hour.

New Millennium Concepts, Ltd. (makers of the Berkey Systems) Warrants this product to be free from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of 6 months from date of purchase. Black Berkey purification elements have a two-year prorated warranty calculated in six months intervals. Not available to ship to California or Iowa.

Top customer reviews

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After reading many reviews on this site as well as prep sites etc. I bought one of these units last summer (on Amazon, from Big Fly Sports) just prior to the arrival of hurricane Irene intended as a safeguard in case of potable water loss/contamination (and because our tap water tastes like algae anyway). Well, I prepped the black filters as per the instructions and gingerly tightened the plastic nuts so that they were secure but without stripping them and filled it up; the water tasted fantastic and I felt good about the investment. There is no o-ring seal, it's a rubber gasket and both the threaded portion of the filter outlet tube and the nut are plastic so you can't really tighten them down much plus the steel in the base of the upper chamber isn't thick enough to keep it from flexing. I performed the red food coloring test and the water came out with a slightly pink tinge to it but considering that the dyed water in the top chamber was dark red, I thought that it was acceptable. We kept the Big Berkey on it's own stand, filled it with water from a pitcher, didn't take it anywhere and it wasn't mishandled. About a month and a half or so later when I was filling it, I noticed that the filters wobbled more than usual and one simply fell over leaving it's base and what appeared to be silicone adhesive behind; turns out the second filter was no longer adhered to it's base either and was simply sitting there held down by gravity. I was under the assumption that this product came from British Berkefeld, known for the performance of their ceramic filters which are used to produce safe drinking water from contaminated sources. After some research online, I found out that Fairey ceramics in the UK produce the filters for BB and Doulton, I then located the UK contacts at British Berkefeld. I emailed the company to tell them what had occurred and find out if they were aware of this issue with "their" black filters. A very nice lady emailed me within a day apologizing for my issue and told me that those filters and the units themselves were produced by a company in Florida (New Millennium Concepts) which was not a subsidiary of British Berkefeld; she even went to the trouble to get their contact info for me. I inquired as to whether I could purchase the "real" British Berkefeld ceramic filters to use with my Big Berkey and she told me that their "candles" would not fit this unit. I didn't bother to contact the company in Florida and get a new set of filters (which cost $100 for 2) because my primary reason for buying all of this was to filter contaminated water and make it safe to drink. How can I trust that there are not contaminants/protozoa/bacteria etc. that you can't see or taste flowing around the adhesive on the filters when I really need them to work or would the adhesive decide to completely let go and allow contaminated water to pass freely? As far as I'm concerned, I paid $260 for 2 very nice looking polished steel containers that came with filters which WERE NOT produced by the company that this product is named after and whose quality I don't trust. For that price range I could have bought a Katadyn pocket microfiter which is proven. I would use this as a fancy water dispenser to filter funky tasting tap water but I'm not paying $100 for those filters. My Berkey is in garage, we have a $25 faucet filter that uses $11 cartridges to make the tap water taste good and I just purchased an MSR Miniworks EX micro filter system (costs almost $30 less than a set of those black filter candles and can be carried in a back pack); it uses a proven ceramic filter with carbon and has a track record of reliability. The unit doesn't make water quickly but I TRUST what is coming out of it. MSR (Cascade Designs) states that it doesn't filter viruses but I already have a Steripen and water purification tabs to take care of that if needed (I'm thinking that those black filters weren't filtering out any viruses either). I decided to write this because I believe that many people considering these units are very serious about preparing for emergencies where your "must haves" include safe water to hydrate with and I wanted to relay my experience to those willing to plunk down a significant chunk of change for a reliable piece of insurance (plus, I really hate feeling like I was "suckered"). I do hope that this helps in your decision and am sorry to relay my bad news in the midst of all of these great reviews which I always read and use to determine my buying decisions, but I am just being honest.

We've had our Berkey for a few months. Our water tastes disgusting, as it is very very hard. Our jug filter did nothing for it, nor did the filter in the fridge dispenser. We though we were doomed to bottled water, but then we found this.

So please that it is not plastic, we are trying to phase out plastics in our home. It's shiny and looks lovely in our home.

It's a great size for our family of 5 and does not need refilling constantly.

And the water? Most importantly- the water is delicious! The Berkey changed our lives.

Major problem: Washers are industrial rubber and leaves a rubber smell and taste in the water. They should have been food grade silicone may be. Still don't know how to resolve that issue but I am not able to use the filter as it is because of this issue.

Instructions could be much clearer than they were but we found some youtube videos to help. Mostly the unclear instructions were about priming using the priming pump (which we preferred) instead of the faucet method. If you are thinking of using the primer pump to prime the filter elements, we suggest you watch the video under the review section of the primer pump that we uploaded based on our initially struggled experience with it. That video shows how to solve the two problems with the primer pump.

Two problems were:1. It came with bare instructions without adequate diagram of the valve placements and it is easy to get it wrong without that.2 The product isn't well designed because the tube insert on the input side is loose enough for air to get in ending up in priming pump not working well.After I struggled with it for 30-40 minutes, both these issues were thankfully solved by my husband so it worked really well and really fast.

Two things he had to do:1. Put a tourniquet like contraption on the input side of the "tube & valve overlap" to make the connection tight enough to not let air in so that the pump would work efficiently without sucking in extra air.2. Keep the filter element COMPLETELY submerged under water to make it work without wasting time on pumping air in and out for a long time before water could come out.

We thought we'll record it so other people could benefit from our experience. Please watch the video to know what I am talking about and make it easier on yourself to use the priming tool. We recorded 2 videos of different problematic parts but Amazon only lets us upload one video per review.

The Big Berkey is perfect for my needs. First thing I did after assembly was to do the food coloring test. The BB filtered all the coloring from the water. I purchased the BB after studying reviews from various water filters. I wanted a filter that is capable of filtering pond or pool water and the BB promises to be the perfect filter for that purpose. I have a pool with 35,000 gal of water and will serve as my water supply in a disaster situation should that happen. Several of the reviews I read on the BB complained about the faucet leaking. I assembled mine without a problem and there are no leaks. If you're looking for a stand alone filter that does not require electricity or to be hooked up to a water supply, then the Big Berkey could be what you are looking for.

My Big Berkey unit arrived with a big dent on the bottom of the lower reservoir which was really disappointing and the only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars. (I tried to photo the dent but the reflective surfaces make it hard to see but I've attached the photo to this review). I was able to assemble it easily though. The hardest part for me was priming the filters as our faucet is a pull down sprayer and I couldn't hold the primer button to it tightly but I was able to get it done. Once the filters were primed and installed, I added some red food coloring to check for leaks and got crystal clear water out of it. The water tastes great!